Posts tagged ‘border economy’

New data from several major automotive manufacturers signals a recovery, and a shift toward expansion and increased foreign direct investment into Mexico’s automotive industry.

Mexico Automotive Brief - Download PDF Here

Mexico’s automotive sector experienced a steep decline in production and investment in 2009 due to the global economic downturn. In fact, by January of 2009, production of cars and light trucks had fallen to less than half of January 2008’s levels — a trend which continued throughout most of 2009. However, several major OEM’s have recently announced plans for production or supplier expansions in Mexico over next few years.

We’re proud to announce that one of the world’s largest manufacturer of miniature ball bearings — and a major supplier of cooling fans, precision motors and electrical component — has retained Crossborder Group for a country-wide analysis of Mexico’s manufacturing markets, and new sales opportunities. While not new to the Mexican market, this California-headquartered subsidiary of a major Asian company has contracted Crossborder to provide a state-by-state review of key manufacturing sectors (including both maquiladora/IMMEX and domestic manufacturers), regional industrial insights and strategic guidance, as well as survey-based feedback from potential customers companies in order to facilitate their growth in Mexico.

This week, the San Diego Union-Tribune covered recent trends of border crossings between San Diego and Tijuana — quoting Crossborder Group’s President, Kenn Morris, and highlighting some of the firm’s recent research. “It is great to see the U-T covering such an important aspect of our binational economy. This is an area that has been in steady decline since 2003, but is finally starting to show signs of stabilization,” states Morris. “There’s really a huge lack of data available about who’s crossing the border and why — something that our own team at Crossborder Group has been trying to solve with periodic at-border surveys.” Current plans are, in fact, underway by Crossborder to conduct these surveys on a quarterly basis to create more real data, and up-to-date information regarding border crossers and their impact on the binational region.

While most elected (and wanting-to-be-elected) officials in Washington D.C. and some US States continue to portray illegal immigration as virtually the only topic of interest we potentially share when it comes to talking about Mexico and our border region (we’re thinking of you, Arizona, and California gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner’s Prop 187-style ads), the new 2010 World Competitiveness Yearbook was released today by the Switzerland-based IMD School of Business. The most striking news from this annual study: the US has dropped from the leading to the third-ranking position (behind Singapore and Hong Kong). While not necessarily surprising to many, certainly the news was big enough for BusinessWeek to headline their story: “Asia Gains, U.S. Drops in Competitiveness” (in case you didn’t get the point).

This news comes on the same day that Presidents Obama and Calderon are meeting in Washington D.C., talking about some of the very issues that are critical to increasing North American competitiveness, and growing jobs (and wealth) in our region…[read more]

If you’re seeing bright yellow shirts with the US-Mexico region and big words saying “CrossborderSurveys” on them… then you know that Crossborder Group staff is hard at work conducting at-border surveys!

Over the next few weeks, you’ll find our crews at the Otay Mesa and San Ysidro Ports of Entry, surveying northbound border crossers about a variety of subjects. Beyond questions related to crossborder shopping and economic impacts, we’re also collecting some insights about crossborder insurance and perceptions of security.

One other new set of data also will relate to time: we’re doing some random sampling of car crossings to better understand the time-savings for inspections of SENTRI versus regular cars crossing at those POEs. Look for some new reports and data coming out in late-April — and feel free to contact us at Answers@CrossborderBusiness.com if you have any questions!

As California’s unemployment rate actually edged up a few more notches to 12.5%, and the overall employment picture in the U.S. continues to be one of cautious optimism, Crossborder’s review of North American employment data through the end of December 2009 underscores the broad nature of job-losses throughout this interconnected economy.

New data released in mid-February shows Mexico’s IMMEX (“maquiladora”) industry employment was on the increase, adding an average of just over 14,000 jobs each month since July 2009. The IMMEX industry (the new, regulatory term for what is widely considered the “maquiladora industry”, covering both former “maquiladora” operations and “PITEX” companies) has been hard hit by the U.S. economic downturn, losing nearly 365,000 jobs in this sector from a near peak in November 2007 to its low-point of 1.58 million employees in July, 2009. Some key findings are presented in our downloadable Crossborder Insights brief…[read more]